Video Games: Free 2 Post/Summer Drought Edition

[Procrastimancer]

I picked up the Mass Effect Trilogy from the PSN flash sale and started playing the first. Heard a lot praise, but I'm not much of a gamer these days and am almost always late to the party. I am around level 13 and the game save file says I am a little over five hours into the game, but I know that's crap because there's been a lot of deaths. Half of that time was probably spent on elevators. A lot of that time was spent cursing at one of the most inconsistent autosave functions I have ever encountered.

I chose the Adept class because what I imagined from the description was much cooler than what I got, so I am kind of hating the class and debating whether it is worth starting over from the beginning.

Despite what it looks like, I actually like the game so far.

[Lyanna Stark]

Right so, whomever didn't believe WildStar dungeons to be hard, we tried the first one yesterday. 5 people, all members of old raid teams. After 2 hours we had managed to down the first boss, but had to quit before we could manage the second one. We had some glitches on the second with pet bugs and stuff and if that hadn't been we would have downed it, just about, but even so, I'd put the first LOLer beginniner dungeon somewhere along the line of General Vezax in difficulty. The second "easy" boss needs three coordinated interrupts, for instance. And has rotating add phases, and dodge the room full of tornadoes phases.

[sToNED_CAT]

Have yet to play ME3; but I'd like to see ME games that don't necessarily involve galaxy spanning threats. Play as a Turian cop hunting down criminals. Maybe a Krogan mercenary fighting in the Rachni wars. It's a galaxy full of lore and possibilities.

I would like to play something like Fierafly in Mass Effect universe - that means not some guy saving galaxy, but someone who wants just to save his own ass, while being pursued by Spectres, authorities, Cerberus etc.

I picked up the Mass Effect Trilogy from the PSN flash sale and started playing the first. Heard a lot praise, but I'm not much of a gamer these days and am almost always late to the party. I am around level 13 and the game save file says I am a little over five hours into the game, but I know that's crap because there's been a lot of deaths. Half of that time was probably spent on elevators. A lot of that time was spent cursing at one of the most inconsistent autosave functions I have ever encountered.

I chose the Adept class because what I imagined from the description was much cooler than what I got, so I am kind of hating the class and debating whether it is worth starting over from the beginning.

Despite what it looks like, I actually like the game so far.

Adept is shit in first ME, it becomes good just in the second. Good class for first game is Vanguard - it's not that difficult, you have some decent weapons available and you have some biotic powers too. But I don't like it in ME2 too much, I especially hate charge during that game I defacto converted to infiltrator gamestyle with some biotics added to the mix.

[Jon AS]

Adept is shit in first ME, it becomes good just in the second. Good class for first game is Vanguard - it's not that difficult, you have some decent weapons available and you have some biotic powers too. But I don't like it in ME2 too much, I especially hate charge during that game I defacto converted to infiltrator gamestyle with some biotics added to the mix.

Just a few minor corrections.;)

Adepts (well, really all biotics, Adepts just have the most diverse powerset) are ridiculously powerful in ME1, and they are at their weakest in ME2. They never get back the ability to simply lock down an entire army with Lift and Singularity again even in ME3, but at least there they can blow shit up with ease. In ME2 their utility is severely limited. So in summary: enjoy it while it lasts.

Also: try to Lift an armature and then Throw it. Not particularly practical (and can be tough to aim), but pretty hilarious when it works.

Vanguards are the most awesome thing about ME2. Dial the difficulty up to max and let the adrenaline wash over you (also be prepared to reload from the last quicksave a lot...).

[sToNED_CAT]

Just a few minor corrections. ;)

Adepts (well, really all biotics, Adepts just have the most diverse powerset) are ridiculously powerful in ME1, and they are at their weakest in ME2. They never get back the ability to simply lock down an entire army with Lift and Singularity again even in ME3, but at least there they can blow shit up with ease. In ME2 their utility is severely limited. So in summary: enjoy it while it lasts.

Also: try to Lift an armature and then Throw it. Not particularly practical (and can be tough to aim), but pretty hilarious when it works.

Vanguards are the most awesome thing about ME2. Dial the difficulty up to max and let the adrenaline wash over you (also be prepared to reload from the last quicksave a lot...).

To tell the truth, I'm no ME expert, I've just read that Adepts are better after ME1, I never actually played for them. I played as Vanguard in both (I didn't play ME3 yet), but like I said I found Charge which is Vanguard main power in ME2 not worth much, because it just brings you right into the middle of your enemies, while your squadmates are left behind so you get mauled. Their other powers are nice though. Maybe I'm infiltrator deep in my heart, but I ended ME2 playing as sniper from distance after Advanced training and Sniper rifle training, so exactly the opposite way as proper Vanguard should play :).

[Ser Peter Hughes]

Y'all need a Gameboy. I'm having the time of my life rocking Pokemon Emerald! Forgot how good this game was... I swear, the GBA/SNES graphics will never look out of date, unlike DS and N64. As much as I love N64, the first generation of 3D looks terrible now.

[Talleyrand]

I was a Vanguard for ME3 and I'll admit my main and nearly only tactic was to bionic charge into a group, ground pound and then shotgun everyone still alive as they were stunned. Though it did also fuck me up quite often if the enemy were stronger than I thought

[Jon AS]

To tell the truth, I'm no ME expert, I've just read that Adepts are better after ME1, I never actually played for them. I played as Vanguard in both (I didn't play ME3 yet), but like I said I found Charge which is Vanguard main power in ME2 not worth much, because it just brings you right into the middle of your enemies, while your squadmates are left behind so you get mauled. Their other powers are nice though. Maybe I'm infiltrator deep in my heart, but I ended ME2 playing as sniper from distance after Advanced training and Sniper rifle training, so exactly the opposite way as proper Vanguard should play :).

Squadmates in ME2 are mostly useless except for their abilities, which you can trigger no matter where they are hanging out on the battlefield. I guess they also make decent decoys, but that's about it.;)

As a Vanguard you just use charge every time the cooldown expires, and in between you shoot things with a shotgun. It also speeds the game up significantly when compared to hanging back and slowly picking off enemies.

Infiltrators are the most fun when armed with a shotgun (or a pistol in ME1 and ME3), since the time dilation effect when sniping is absolutely infuriating in single player.

[Tony Soprano]

All this Mass Effect talk is getting me hyped for the inevitable teaser on Monday.

[Inigima]

Y'all need a Gameboy. I'm having the time of my life rocking Pokemon Emerald! Forgot how good this game was... I swear, the GBA/SNES graphics will never look out of date, unlike DS and N64. As much as I love N64, the first generation of 3D looks terrible now.

I feel compelled to say this every time the subject comes up, but I fucking hate Pokemon. The games move at a glacial pace and every one is the same.

[E-Ro]

I'm really surprised people aren't REALLY cautious of bioware games. After dragon age 2 (yuck) and the mass effect ending(the reapers are killing you for your own good, yeah it makes sense) I'm very much wary of inquisition. So far it looks and sounds good, and chances are I will buy it. BUT I won't be buying it on launch day, will most likely wait a week or two.

[Jace, Extat]

Anyone ever seen a gaming laptop explode? I have. Too much Skyrim, I guess.

Luckily, my new desktop arrived later that day.

[Rhom]

I'm a bit confused on how the memory works on my PS3 I suppose. Last night, it said I had a few thousand megabytes out of 74G available. I already had all the DLC for ME3 downloaded. Leviathan, From Ashes, Citadel, Omega, and the free multiplayer pack combo. But it would not allow me to install the packs.

So with a heavy heart, my hoarder self went through and dropped my MGS4 game data (4000 MB) that had been on there since 6/12/08 and along the way dropped Dragon Age and Dragon Age 2 and a few others. I left some games that are quick pop in and play type things like Street Fighter IV and Dynasty Warriors: Gundam and some others that I still plan on picking back up like Fallout 3.

I probably dropped 6 games that averaged 3500 MB installs each according to the information side panel. I didn't check what the system availability said. Then I went through and installed all of the ME3 DLC... some of those are huge! I think it was Omega that was close to 4000 MB just by itself.

After finishing all of that, I went back and checked the system info and it says I have 12 Gigs. :dunno:

Do the files take up more space when downloaded but not installed? I can't believe that I cleared enough of the save data based on the information I was given to have room to install those and clear 12 Gigs.

I also have no earthly idea what I am using 64 Gigs of storage for on there now that I've cleared out everything else. Ah well. Not that it matters really.

[Enguerrand]

Not seen it mentioned but I been playing Xcom: enemy within, which I think is an amazing game. It's turn based but it doesn't feel like it, and there are hundreds of way to do things and it's actually hard on harder difficulty levels. It also have a surprisingly strong Rpg component despite being a strategy game.

[Fez]

Rhom,

Does the PS3 allow you to plug a flash drive in for extra storage? The 360 does, and I'm probably going to need to start doing that myself soon; running very low memory space these days.

[KiDisaster]

Right so, whomever didn't believe WildStar dungeons to be hard, we tried the first one yesterday. 5 people, all members of old raid teams. After 2 hours we had managed to down the first boss, but had to quit before we could manage the second one. We had some glitches on the second with pet bugs and stuff and if that hadn't been we would have downed it, just about, but even so, I'd put the first LOLer beginniner dungeon somewhere along the line of General Vezax in difficulty. The second "easy" boss needs three coordinated interrupts, for instance. And has rotating add phases, and dodge the room full of tornadoes phases.

Dungeon difficulty is one of the things I never got to see for myself in the beta. I'm considering picking Wildstar up though. I have the MMO itch and WoW just isn't scratching it anymore. Wouldn't mind playing with a mature/experienced group of people either so if your guild/group has room for one more let me know :)

[Ser Peter Hughes]

I feel compelled to say this every time the subject comes up, but I fucking hate Pokemon. The games move at a glacial pace and every one is the same.

Emerald moves at a fairly fast pace though and was before the series stagnated. It was a large change from the previous generation and had a halfway interesting plot. I prefer Final Fantasy VI for GBA, though.

[Muttering Bill]

Do the files take up more space when downloaded but not installed? I can't believe that I cleared enough of the save data based on the information I was given to have room to install those and clear 12 Gigs.

It makes a seperate download and install files. So you have to have double the amount of space. If PSN told you you needed 4000MB to install, then the file should end up at around 2000MB.

[Rhom]

Not seen it mentioned but I been playing Xcom: enemy within, which I think is an amazing game. It's turn based but it doesn't feel like it, and there are hundreds of way to do things and it's actually hard on harder difficulty levels. It also have a surprisingly strong Rpg component despite being a strategy game.

It got quite a bit of discussion last year around here. In fact, I think it may have had its own thread.

Rhom,

Does the PS3 allow you to plug a flash drive in for extra storage? The 360 does, and I'm probably going to need to start doing that myself soon; running very low memory space these days.

It does, and I may need to do something along those lines.

It makes a seperate download and install files. So you have to have double the amount of space. If PSN told you you needed 4000MB to install, then the file should end up at around 2000MB.

I figured it must have been something like that. So once it was installed, it essentially took up half the space in the drive.

[1918me]

Emerald moves at a fairly fast pace though and was before the series stagnated. It was a large change from the previous generation and had a halfway interesting plot. I prefer Final Fantasy VI for GBA, though.

:cheers:

I still have the original SNES release of that game (back when it was known as Final Fantasy III in the US), and it may very well be my favorite RPG of all time. The bugs in the SNES version just made it even better, in my opinion; so much fun to mess around with...